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Concise Courses – SCADA in Miami

Concise Courses is an information security training organization in the United States offering various categories of IT Security Certifications. Of particular interest are their SCADA training courses which are aimed at enhancing the security of SCADA and ICS systems. (SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition and ICS: Industrial Control System).

Their SCADA course in Miami, June 22nd – 23rd, is a two day training session with the following title: “How To Secure Your Industrial Automation Control Systems.” This course is topical and in-demand since we are clearly seeing hackers (both at a script-kiddie and more professional/ state-sponsored level) attempting to break into utilities and other critical infrastructures around the world. In this age whereby all militaries around the world acknowledge that cyber warfare is a very real (current) medium of war – protecting SCADA and ICS has never been greater.

There are many examples of how SCADA systems have been targeted and attacked. In an asymmetrical (cyber) warfare scope, SCADA was in the cross-hairs for the Syrian Electronic Army when they targeted Israel several weeks ago. The Georgia-Russia war in which the Russians deployed a mass SCADA-related onslaught designed to weaken Georgia’s military response is another military example of the use of specifically targeting SCADA. Also – last but certainly not least – Stuxnet, DuQu, Flamer and all her siblings are also examples of related industrial hacks.

Whichever way you look at it, Information Security training and the associated awareness is vital, not only to our global economy, our military, but also our health! The reason we say that is because SCADA systems control almost all our utilities such as water and sewage management. Zero day vulnerabilities discovered within these systems could have catastrophic implications hence the need to protect them as much as we can – and clearly training technicians, engineers and security professionals is one solid defensive approach.

The Concise Courses team have organized a SCADA demonstration May 21st which will demonstrate how easily a hacker can gain access to a SCADA system using metasploit and a USB stick! Pretty unbelievable when you think about it, i.e. being able to bring down a power plant with a lowly $2 dollar USB drive!